Exploring Dualism(s)

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[treekisser]

I never liked dualities because they seemed too pat.

So you can imagine my horror when I realised that my perception of my godforms has gotten increasingly dualistic.

Of course they don't fit together in a neat abstract way. It's just that it's possible to fit the concrete details I have about them into abstractions. So, for example, even though it's more fire/dark, I can fit that into light/dark. Or immanent fire/dehydrating water can be shoehorned into fire/water. Stick figure/female into male/female, you get the drift. Intuitively I feel like this approach can be helpful, if it isn't carried so far as to flatten individual characteristics for the sake of conceptual neatness

I'm curious, how many others here would say they work within a dualistic framework? Is it a part of your path, or simply your own approach to your path, and if so how do you think the dualistic framework contributes to a deeper understanding of your path? How have you developed your framework to take into account the 'textured' nature of reality (as opposed to flattening things out)?

[HeartShadow - Cutethulhu]

I never liked dualities because they seemed too pat.

So you can imagine my horror when I realised that my perception of my godforms has gotten increasingly dualistic.

Of course they don't fit together in a neat abstract way. It's just that it's possible to fit the concrete details I have about them into abstractions. So, for example, even though it's more fire/dark, I can fit that into light/dark. Or immanent fire/dehydrating water can be shoehorned into fire/water. Stick figure/female into male/female, you get the drift. Intuitively I feel like this approach can be helpful, if it isn't carried so far as to flatten individual characteristics for the sake of conceptual neatness

I'm curious, how many others here would say they work within a dualistic framework? Is it a part of your path, or simply your own approach to your path, and if so how do you think the dualistic framework contributes to a deeper understanding of your path? How have you developed your framework to take into account the 'textured' nature of reality (as opposed to flattening things out)?

Flamekeeping tends to work with creative tension - Dark and Bright flames aren't exactly *opposite* but it's still a duality.

I think the most important thing is to not conflate all your dualities TOGETHER - water doesn't get pegged with woman and dark, f'ex.  (or fire and light.  whichever)

Also, there's both dualities and circles in Flamekeeping - from inner to outer to the Divine back to the inside.  So it's not just one form of thing.

Also, I fully intend to thump anyone that takes the metaphor too far. 

[Marilyn (ABSENTMINDED)]

I'm curious, how many others here would say they work within a dualistic framework? Is it a part of your path, or simply your own approach to your path, and if so how do you think the dualistic framework contributes to a deeper understanding of your path? How have you developed your framework to take into account the 'textured' nature of reality (as opposed to flattening things out)?

I tend to work more with a three-in-one concept, but I do find that many of my trios can be balanced against another trio in a dualistic way.  Many more can be balanced in an almost-but-not- quite-unless-you-need-to way.

I think I've been more articulate about this in the past (my brain isn't back in full gear yet from the summer's health problems).  Basically, everything (quality, concept, theme, etc.) has a 'neutral' state that carries with it two extreme states.  They are not opposites, just a rough spectrum, and tend to rely on perspective.

This isn't likely to make too much sense without examples, but see the above note about brain function.  I still translate most things I read into their two other parts (so, if someone uses a positive descriptor for their own nature or actions, I automatically supply the negative and neutral terms while assessing their accuracy) but I can't think of anything definitive at the moment.

It's possible i shouldn't have started this post, but I'm trying to kick-start my higher faculties and dualism/polarity/other frameworks are something that interest me.

Absent

[Darkhawk]

I'm curious, how many others here would say they work within a dualistic framework? Is it a part of your path, or simply your own approach to your path, and if so how do you think the dualistic framework contributes to a deeper understanding of your path? How have you developed your framework to take into account the 'textured' nature of reality (as opposed to flattening things out)?

I have always always always been hooked on dualities.  Not in the good/evil style, but more in the yin/yang style, where the system explicitly puts a wee dot of the one in the head of the other.  It's very much how I see the world, this intricate dance between zillions of different pairings.

It's also very Kemetic, and also very Feri, which is satisfying to me.

The big thing with the pairs is that they are not collapsible.  To go at a Kemetic landscape: the black land and the red land are not the same thing as the seen world and the unseen world are not the same thing as the day boat and the night boat are not the same thing as the wind blowing upriver and the current flowing downstream.  But all of these pairs are essential to the shape of that world.  Sometimes one pair is the relevant one, sometimes another, and they are all twined together in a very complex fashion.

I think a lot of damage comes of collapsing the dualities into the One True Duality, and assigning other pairs to "belong to" one or the other half of an unrelated one.  It's why I eventually realised that religion with a fundamental gender pairing didn't play well with me - too much collapsing of the pairs.

[Star]

The big thing with the pairs is that they are not collapsible.  To go at a Kemetic landscape: the black land and the red land are not the same thing as the seen world and the unseen world are not the same thing as the day boat and the night boat are not the same thing as the wind blowing upriver and the current flowing downstream.  But all of these pairs are essential to the shape of that world.  Sometimes one pair is the relevant one, sometimes another, and they are all twined together in a very complex fashion.

::pause to consider::

I have very little to say on the subject of dualities--I like them as a literary device very much but have no particular religious attachment to them--but I wanted to pop in and say thank you and brava for this.  That made something click in my head that made duality make a little more sense than it used to (albeit still as "something other people do").

[Vermillion]

::pause to consider::

I have very little to say on the subject of dualities--I like them as a literary device very much but have no particular religious attachment to them--but I wanted to pop in and say thank you and brava for this.  That made something click in my head that made duality make a little more sense than it used to (albeit still as "something other people do").

Me too! Thanks for that, Darkhawk. Seeing that in a whole different light, now.

[SunflowerP]

I have always always always been hooked on dualities.  Not in the good/evil style, but more in the yin/yang style, where the system explicitly puts a wee dot of the one in the head of the other.  It's very much how I see the world, this intricate dance between zillions of different pairings.

For exactly that reason, I needed to spend time (a long time, to explore it well) working with duality before I could effectively get beyond it.  I'm not beyond it yet; I'm still sorting what parts of that frame are tools that have become obsolete and what parts are integral to my sense of the workings of things - but I'm getting there; I know that "beyond" was the destination I was heading toward, and anything I chuck out, I'll be chucking out (or putting in the metaphorical storage cupboard, to be taken out only when there's a specific need for that particular bit) knowing what it is and isn't useful for, not just reflexively as a rejection of dominant paradigms.

Not to suggest that those who reject the dominant paradigms right off are necessarily doing so as a knee-jerk reaction; I'm speaking only to what I needed to do.

Sunflower

[treekisser]

I think the most important thing is to not conflate all your dualities TOGETHER - water doesn't get pegged with woman and dark, f'ex.  (or fire and light.  whichever)

This is what squicked me out actually, because one godform now manifests as female, with caverns and water and darkness and stuff which just made my cliche meter hit the roof.

But why is it important not to conflate dualities? Especially if, as in my case, they're actually part of the same being?

creative tension - Dark and Bright flames aren't exactly *opposite*

This. I'm not quite sure how to translate this into a plan of action, but I know it's important to let things be a bit asymmetrical. A bit alive, so there's that 'creative tension'.

[treekisser]

Hi there! 

I tend to work more with a three-in-one concept, but I do find that many of my trios can be balanced against another trio in a dualistic way.  Many more can be balanced in an almost-but-not- quite-unless-you-need-to way.

I think I've been more articulate about this in the past (my brain isn't back in full gear yet from the summer's health problems).  Basically, everything (quality, concept, theme, etc.) has a 'neutral' state that carries with it two extreme states.  They are not opposites, just a rough spectrum, and tend to rely on perspective.

So your three-in-one isn't a Trinity three-persons-in-one thing, but a three-points-of-a-spectrum thing?

When you say you balance a trio against another trio, do you mean within the same being?

[treekisser]

I have always always always been hooked on dualities.  Not in the good/evil style, but more in the yin/yang style, where the system explicitly puts a wee dot of the one in the head of the other.  It's very much how I see the world, this intricate dance between zillions of different pairings.

I can relate, except I always like to think of the yin-yang sign in smudgy watercolours so they blur into each other. I'm inclined towards seeing the world not so much as a dance of discrete stuff...more like a giant lipstick smear.

The big thing with the pairs is that they are not collapsible.  To go at a Kemetic landscape: the black land and the red land are not the same thing as the seen world and the unseen world are not the same thing as the day boat and the night boat are not the same thing as the wind blowing upriver and the current flowing downstream.  But all of these pairs are essential to the shape of that world.  Sometimes one pair is the relevant one, sometimes another, and they are all twined together in a very complex fashion.

Two questions: the first is the same one I asked Shadow I think - why not collapse?

The second is in some way the opposite to the first (hah, a duality): why even pair things up at all? Why not just have black land, red land, all the various shades of them and other colours...what is the point of then grouping them into a duality?

[treekisser]

For exactly that reason, I needed to spend time (a long time, to explore it well) working with duality before I could effectively get beyond it.  I'm not beyond it yet

Do you have an idea of what will be beyond duality?

[Darkhawk]

But why is it important not to conflate dualities? Especially if, as in my case, they're actually part of the same being?

Because the world doesn't work that way.

When you conflate dualities you get male-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-phallic all as a lump, paired up with female-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-yonic all as a lump.

And yeah, there are beings that are male-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-phallic-disciplining.  And there are beings that are female-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-yonic-nurturing.  That's not actually relevant.

And it's not relevant because there are beings that are, say, male-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-phallic.  Or male-active-dominant-neither-aggressive-hot-phallic.  Or female-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-whut.  Or female-neither-neither-stellar-peaceful-buh-yonic.  The dualities don't collapse together like a fan and substitute for each other so you can say "peaceful" and know all the other traits - you have to learn the traits for each pairing distinctly, because they are actually distinct.

If I say "female" and you assume "cold", then you have conflated dualities.  If I say "active" and you assume "male, therefore solar", then you have conflated dualities.  This is rude, and entities that are maltreated because of such rudeness are unlikely to be feeling friendly afters.

[Darkhawk]

The second is in some way the opposite to the first (hah, a duality): why even pair things up at all? Why not just have black land, red land, all the various shades of them and other colours...what is the point of then grouping them into a duality?

What's the point in calling my hair brown?

It is what it is.

[SunflowerP]

Do you have an idea of what will be beyond duality?

Fewer (ideally, eventually none) intrusions from culturally-mandated gender essentialism.  (Mainly, though not exclusively, referring to modern Western culture, since that's my culture so its assumptions are the ones that can sneak in unexamined.)

Otherwise, I'll know when I get there.

Sunflower

[Tana]

Because the world doesn't work that way.

When you conflate dualities you get male-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-phallic all as a lump, paired up with female-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-yonic all as a lump.

And yeah, there are beings that are male-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-phallic-disciplining.  And there are beings that are female-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-yonic-nurturing.  That's not actually relevant.

And it's not relevant because there are beings that are, say, male-passive-submissive-lunar-peaceful-cold-phallic.  Or male-active-dominant-neither-aggressive-hot-phallic.  Or female-active-dominant-solar-aggressive-hot-whut.  Or female-neither-neither-stellar-peaceful-buh-yonic.  The dualities don't collapse together like a fan and substitute for each other so you can say "peaceful" and know all the other traits - you have to learn the traits for each pairing distinctly, because they are actually distinct.

If I say "female" and you assume "cold", then you have conflated dualities.  If I say "active" and you assume "male, therefore solar", then you have conflated dualities.  This is rude, and entities that are maltreated because of such rudeness are unlikely to be feeling friendly afters.

So well said.
I think this lumping together is the problem most people really have with dualities.
Yin-Yang is as misunderstood as Karma by most westerners, I guess.
You worded exactly what I think about this.

Do you have an idea of what will be beyond duality?

Unity?
The loss of the illusion of separation.
Being whole inspite of containing dualistic tension and dynamic causing pools of.... being.
Ouch, sorry, I am really at a loss for words here.

I know I want to express something and what, but I just cant.

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